Ione Parkin RWA is a painter, printmaker and the curator of 'Cosmos: The Art of Observing Space' (Royal West of England Academy, January-April 2026; Aberdeen Art Gallery. November 2026-April 2027). She is an Honorary Visiting Fellow of the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester; Research Collaborator, University of Bristol; and a Royal West of England Academician. Parkin co-leads the Creativity and Curiosity art-astronomy project, exhibiting in Berlin, Glasgow, Birmingham, Leicester and the Isle of Lewis and contributing to interdisciplinary conferences in Dundee, London, Berlin and Amsterdam. Parkin delivered the John Brown Memorial Lecture 2024 at the Royal Astronomical Society, London, in honour of the late John Brown, 10th Astronomer Royal for Scotland.
Parkin's work is informed by her on-going dialogue with space researchers over a 10-year period. Her richly textured mixed media works on paper simulate geological samples of distant and unreachable planetary terrain. 'Sublimation of Mars Polar Ice II' is part of a series inspired by the carbon-dioxide and water ice which covers the polar regions of Mars. The ice fractures in the slightly warmer, thicker atmosphere of the Martian summer, revealing the iron-rich earth between the cracks. 'Fissure' relates to the topographical features of a barren, hyper-cold planetary surface.